Hi,
This semester I'm trying out gateway quizzes for the first time, and I thought I was all ready to go - students are supposed to begin taking the test later today. But I guess that I haven't tested hard enough as a student. I have an urgent question, but first, here is a description of my set-up:
I set up a regular webwork Gateway/quiz (not "proctored gateway/quiz"), and I have set an IP restriction so that students only can only take it in the campus Testing Center. I give students multiple attempts to pass it.
My problem is this: I just noticed that students can view and print hard copies of all older attempts on the quiz!! This essentially allows them to see the quiz questions from home. Is there any way to prevent this. I seems to me that when an IP restriction is set, the test should be confidential, except perhaps in the restricted IP range...
Is there anything that can be done? This is the first quiz/set of the semester, so even if I can turn of printing and viewing of old attempts altogether, that'll be fine (I'll just turn it back on later).
Thanks,
Lars.
Hi Lars,
It should be the case that setting IP restrictions means that students can't view the test or hardcopy from the restricted IP addresses.
It's worth noting that there's a setting in global.conf in the permissionLevels hash for "view_ip_restricted_sets"; the default is that this is set to "ta", so that TAs and professors can view sets even from the wrong IP address.
Depending on what version of WebWorK you're using, there may be a setting for "Relax IP restrictions when?" If that's set to Never, it should be the case that either when generating hardcopy or when viewing the test on-line students can't get it.
Also depending on what version of WeBWorK you're using, there may be a setting for "Show Student Work on Finished Tests." If this is set to "No," students should not see any of their work (and should not be able to generate hardcopies).
Gavin
It should be the case that setting IP restrictions means that students can't view the test or hardcopy from the restricted IP addresses.
It's worth noting that there's a setting in global.conf in the permissionLevels hash for "view_ip_restricted_sets"; the default is that this is set to "ta", so that TAs and professors can view sets even from the wrong IP address.
Depending on what version of WebWorK you're using, there may be a setting for "Relax IP restrictions when?" If that's set to Never, it should be the case that either when generating hardcopy or when viewing the test on-line students can't get it.
Also depending on what version of WeBWorK you're using, there may be a setting for "Show Student Work on Finished Tests." If this is set to "No," students should not see any of their work (and should not be able to generate hardcopies).
Gavin
Hi Gavin,
It might be a bug.
Here are my settings (under "Set Details"):
* I have an IP restriction on the set
* Relax IP restrictions when? is set to Never
* Show Scores on Finished Assignments? is set to "No"
* Show Student Work on Finished Tests is set to "No"
I have the latter two set to "No" for the whole class - I noticed that I am unable to change the latter two settings for individual students. This might be a bug. Even when these are set to "No," students can see their old quizzes from outside the restricted IP area.
For good measure, I set also view_ip_restricted_sets to "ta" in course.conf. We're running Trel-2-4-patches and I ran CVS update just a few days ago so everything is up-to-date.
Even with all of these settings students can view and print their old attempts from outside the IP restricted area.
Lars.
It might be a bug.
Here are my settings (under "Set Details"):
* I have an IP restriction on the set
* Relax IP restrictions when? is set to Never
* Show Scores on Finished Assignments? is set to "No"
* Show Student Work on Finished Tests is set to "No"
I have the latter two set to "No" for the whole class - I noticed that I am unable to change the latter two settings for individual students. This might be a bug. Even when these are set to "No," students can see their old quizzes from outside the restricted IP area.
For good measure, I set also view_ip_restricted_sets to "ta" in course.conf. We're running Trel-2-4-patches and I ran CVS update just a few days ago so everything is up-to-date.
Even with all of these settings students can view and print their old attempts from outside the IP restricted area.
Lars.
Hi Lars,
What version of WeBWorK are you running? I'm unable to duplicate this behavior on my system. I have a test with the settings:
* IP restrictions set to deny from an address
* Relax IP restrictions set to never
My system isn't letting me take a test, nor look at solutions, nor generate a hardcopy of a test with those settings.
That said, I think there were some bugfixes for permissions issues in Hardcopy and Authz that got ported to 2.4-patches last summer.
Gavin
What version of WeBWorK are you running? I'm unable to duplicate this behavior on my system. I have a test with the settings:
* IP restrictions set to deny from an address
* Relax IP restrictions set to never
My system isn't letting me take a test, nor look at solutions, nor generate a hardcopy of a test with those settings.
That said, I think there were some bugfixes for permissions issues in Hardcopy and Authz that got ported to 2.4-patches last summer.
Gavin
Hi Gavin,
It appears that the problem may be that what determines whether I can view the old tests is whether the ip restriction was in place at the time the exam was taken... (it is inconsequential whether a restriction is in place when a student want to view it.)
For example assume that no ip restriction is set, and a student takes the gateway test (at home). If the instructor, after the student has taken the test, defines an ip restriction that restrict the student to take (later attempts) at the campus testing center then the student will still be able to read the first attempt from outside the restrictd ip's.
This is probably not a situation that occurs very often, but it occurred for me because I was testing, and during the testing I was turning the IP restriction off (because I didn't want to go to the testing center) every time I took the test. As a result, I could later view all my attempts from anywhere.
Lars.
It appears that the problem may be that what determines whether I can view the old tests is whether the ip restriction was in place at the time the exam was taken... (it is inconsequential whether a restriction is in place when a student want to view it.)
For example assume that no ip restriction is set, and a student takes the gateway test (at home). If the instructor, after the student has taken the test, defines an ip restriction that restrict the student to take (later attempts) at the campus testing center then the student will still be able to read the first attempt from outside the restrictd ip's.
This is probably not a situation that occurs very often, but it occurred for me because I was testing, and during the testing I was turning the IP restriction off (because I didn't want to go to the testing center) every time I took the test. As a result, I could later view all my attempts from anywhere.
Lars.
Hi Lars,
I think you're spot on in your diagnosis. Because of the way data are managed for gateways, the test versions that students take have a lot of saved information about the test, which results in things like the IP restrictions not being inherited as one might expect. I've been reducing the amount of information that is saved for the set versions to reduce that, but I don't recall if that is in the patches or unstable source tree.
Gavin
I think you're spot on in your diagnosis. Because of the way data are managed for gateways, the test versions that students take have a lot of saved information about the test, which results in things like the IP restrictions not being inherited as one might expect. I've been reducing the amount of information that is saved for the set versions to reduce that, but I don't recall if that is in the patches or unstable source tree.
Gavin